Lessons from Santa Barbara’s Volunteer Search and Rescue Team

After more than a few decades on Santa Barbara’s Search and Rescue team, Nelson Trichler has learned a few things. For starters, hike early in the morning, before the heat of the day kicks in. Here in Santa Barbara, once the fog burns off, the temperature spike can creep up on you.

“Bring layers to protect your body temperature and your skin from the sun,” said Trichler. “Another thing we see a lot is dehydrated hikers. It all comes down to preplanning — where you’re going to go, how long you’re expected to be gone.”

That preplanning is emphasized among the team. “We are strong believers in preventative search and rescue,” Trichler said. Given the recent spike in temperatures, despite it still being late winter, it is a timely reminder.

Outside of assisting hikers and other day-trip adventurers, the team has also been called into some of the region’s darkest moments. Trichler himself has taken part in more than 3,000 missions, including the Montecito debris flow, the Camp Fire, and swift-water rescues along the San Diego River.

That is the thing about search and rescue. The work can be a twisted ankle above Tangerine Falls, or it can enter the realm of wildfire wreckage, floodwater, or a family waiting for closure.

Trichler, 69, has been with the team since 1981 and now serves as board president and one of its operational leaders. He is from Santa Barbara — raised here, educated here, then drawn back here. He got into search and rescue, he said, through a combination of backpacking, rock climbing, and a desire to do community service. What began as a volunteer commitment became, over 45 years, what he described as his “other full-time, non-paying job.”

He says that while “I may not get up the trail as fast as I did 20 years ago, I still enjoy helping out where I can!”

The team itself is volunteer-run, operating under the authority of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office. It is on call around the clock, year-round, and responds not only throughout Santa Barbara County but, at times, on mutual-aid missions farther afield. The team now has 47 members, and its inception stretches back to the ’70s.

That volunteer structure is part of what gives the team its civic mystique — and its logistical complexity. Members are not sitting in a station waiting for the call. They are in meetings, at work, with their children, coaching soccer, living regular lives until a page goes out. Then they respond, gather gear, coordinate, and head out.

Jason Copus, a rescue member, said the group averages about two calls a week. A typical incident might draw 11 to 14 members and last two to four hours, though more serious rescues can stretch longer and require additional personnel. The team is currently recruiting, and applicants must clear the bar: physical fitness, training commitment, background requirements, and the willingness to give many hours to work that is unpaid and strenuous.

Copus said the calls they see most often in South County are not the cinematic, cliff-hanger disasters of popular imagination. More often, they involve injured, dehydrated, or overdue hikers. 

One of the beloved quirks of Santa Barbara is how close the wilderness sits to town. A person can leave a neighborhood street and be deep into the front country in minutes. The ease of access is part of the appeal; it is also part of the problem. Trichler noted that a dozen trailheads are within about 10 minutes of population centers, which means oftentimes people are not prepared for how quickly terrain conditions can change.

The team saw one version of that recently at Tangerine Falls, where an injured hiker had to be extracted. Given the complexity of the canyon and the challenge of carrying someone over boulders and creek crossings, the team determined that a helicopter hoist was the safest option.

But not every call ends with a helicopter. The best rescue is the one that never becomes one.

That is the logic behind preventative search and rescue — it means getting information out before people head uphill. Urge folks to bring more water than they think they need, wear proper footwear, carry layers, tell someone where they are going, and turn around when things start to go sideways.

So what keeps Trichler in this business? The chance to help somebody out, he said — or, if the outcome is worse, to return them to their family with professionalism and care. That, in his words, is part of what people with a vested interest in a community “ought to do.”